7/30/2019 Newspaper Algeo II

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THE

THE TIMESTODAY: Local student saves electricity for environmental project

HOW MANY MONTHS TILL 300 kWh?!

Every

action

counts

Viet

Bui

For moreinformation

on how you

could helpmother

Earth, dial

1-800-

GOGREEN

.edu.my

Local hero Viet Bui(Grade 8) has set agoal August 2012 to

conserve more

electricity. Today, weinterview him on his

amazing monthlydecrease of electrical

use. Looking back at

the data, it has shownthat he has dropped

at least 130 kWh since

the first time herecorded his electrical

bill. I was relatively

surprised said Mr. Buiduring the interview

..that I havemanaged to use so

much electricity with a

simple action likeflicking a lightswitch.

Now, after keeping a

keen eye on my

usage, i managed togo down to about 736

kWh just by doingsimple and easy

things. Viet has been

documenting hisfamilys electrical

usage and fixing theirhabits stating that...

(more on page 2)

MAY6th

2013PERIOD2

~

YOURTITLEHEREShown above: Multiple steps Viet has taken to decrease his comsumption. (Top to bottom)turning off the lights, setting sleep timers on ACs and shutting down computers

~

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7/30/2019 Newspaper Algeo II

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FREENEWSPAPERTEMPLATEDELIVEREDBYWWW.EXTRANEWSPAPERS.COM

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VB:Ichoseelectricity

becauseofthelong-term

effectsitwillyieldifwe

continuetowasteit.

Factoriesthatproduce

electricityemitgasseslike

carbondioxide,wherethe

carbondioxidetrapsthe

heatfromthesunlight

withinouratmosphere,

leadinguptoglobal

warming.Smogand

pollutioncouldalsoharmusinthelongrun,harming

delicateplantsthatyield

airforustobreath.

Q:So,whydyou

chooseelectricity?

VB:Allofmyfamily

membershavebeen

supportingmesincethe

dayIvestartedcollecting

data,helpingmeturnoff

lights,remindingeach

otherwheneverweforget

andmuchmore.Evenmy

aunt,uncleandcousinare

participatinginourlittle

projecttodecrease

electricity.However,my

littlebrotherhashadsome

problemstryingtoadjust

butoveralltheyhavebeen

verysupportive

Q:Whatdoesyour

familythink?

every action counts.There were certain

periods of times wheremy family and I forgot

about our electrical

diet (primarily half waythrough the project)

and rise back to our

initial energy levels,sometimes even more

than that but wed

stop, remember andrevert back to our

changed ways. Mr.Bui has revealeda

variety of tips and

tricks he has used sofar, but here are his

top 5 methods of

conserving electricity:

Turn off lightswhen not in use

At night, shutdown

comuptersrather than

letting them

sleep

Set sleep timerson AC when

Instead of usinga dryer to dry

clothing Do itthe old fashionway and let the

wind dry yourundies.

If you get thechance to,trade away

your normalappliances for

moreenvironmentall-y

friendly ones

which do theexact same thing

but use less

energy.Viet Buis math teacher,

Rebecca Lemos, has

given him the task oftrying to find out how

many months it will taketo reach the goal of only

300 kWhs. Pictured

below is his monthlydata.

By turning it into ascatterplot and finding

the fitted line, he can

estimate how manymonths is will take him

to reach his goal of 300kwh. What youre aboutto read is the genius

himself explaining how

he found the equation forthe line and how he uses

it to estimate his target,300 kWh.

After estimating where my line of best fit may be I

take the standard form of a linear equation

( y =mx+b ) and try to fill in the blanks, starting with

the slope or m. I obtain 2 coordinates on my line, inmy case, (0, 809) & (6, 760). Using an ancient

algebra technique, I take the 2 coordinates and

subtract the x coordinates and the y coordinates by

each other to find the slope (y

x

):

809 760

06

= 49

6

Thankfully, the slope we get is a negative one

meaning that my usage decreases as time progresses(linear decay). Now, we plug it in into your linear

equation to get y =496

x + b . Finding b is easier to

do since its the y intercept or the point where the line

crosses the y axis and in my case its the very firstpoint of the scatter plot, 809 kWh. We plug the

newfound information into our linear equation to

complete it:

y = 49

6x +809

Finally, we can use the equation to estimate when my

electrical usage will reach 300 by substituting 300 fory:

300 =496

x+809

We use inverse operations, subtracting 809 from both

sides and multiplying each side by -6/49 to get 62.33months! This is a resonable estimate considering how

high my energy usage started out, but I still hope wecan still continue our current behaviours to work our

way towards our goal.